1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile handheld devices, and in particular, to servicing and cycling of advertisements on mobile handheld devices.
2. Background Art
A web browser is an application a user typically uses to display and view web pages of websites that are accessible on the World Wide Web (i.e., “the Web”). When viewed, many web pages display advertisements in addition to other information relevant to the particular web page. Often, for each advertisement, the web page includes a generic image Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and a generic destination URL. The generic image URL provides a generic address for an image of the advertisement to display on the web page. For example, the generic image URL may provide an address to a server storing advertisement image files, such as an image file containing an automobile manufacturer advertisement banner image. The automobile manufacturer advertisement banner image may be displayed by a web browser when the web page containing the image URL is viewed. The generic destination URL of the advertisement provides an address of another web page that will be viewed by the web browser if a user viewing the advertisement image clicks on (i.e., selects) the advertisement image. For example, if the advertisement image is the automobile manufacturer advertisement banner, and a user “clicks” on this image on a web page, the destination URL will be used to cause the web browser to view the automobile manufacturer's home web page or other desired web page.
A variety of mobile devices (such as personal data assistants, or PDAs) exist. Web content (as well as other objects) can be loaded on mobile devices for users of mobile devices to view and interact with such web content on their mobile devices while in an offline mode (i.e., not connected to the Web).
However, difficulties exist in servicing web page advertisements on mobile devices when operating in an offline mode. Thus, what is needed are ways to service advertisements on mobile devices for offline viewing and access.